Orhan Pamuk:«Lo que une a los pueblos es el sonido del corazón»

El Premio Nobel de Literatura de hace dos años aspira a que Turquía entre en la Unión Europea, a pesar de los inconvenientes que hay EFE / MADRID

efe / madrid El escritor turco Orhan Pamuk cree que «el nacionalismo ascendente» que se da en buena parte del mundo es uno de los motivos que impide el ingreso de Turquía en la UE, aunque su experiencia le ha enseñado que «lo que une a los pueblos no es la política, sino el sonido del corazón, la música de los cuerpos». Pamuk, Premio Nobel de Literatura 2006, lanzó hace unos días esta reflexión en un reciente encuentro con la prensa en el que tanto él como Juan Goytisolo defendieron con énfasis la necesidad de que la UE «abra sus puertas» a Turquía, porque así podría aflorar a la superficie «toda la riqueza, la belleza y la multiculturalidad de este país». El novelista turco, que desde el principio dejó claro que en España se siente «como en casa» y que su cultura no le es ajena, tuvo un doble motivo para estar en Madrid: lo han hecho doctor honoris causa por la Universidad Complutense, y por intervenir, junto con Goytisolo, en el programa Miradas turcas que se desarrolla estos días en la capital. A ambos escritores les une una fuerte amistad desde hace dieciocho años y una recíproca admiración. Uno y otro son también claro ejemplo de intelectuales «comprometidos con el tiempo que les ha tocado vivir», como puso de manifiesto la coordinadora de esta iniciativa, Concha Hernández. La creencia en la Alianza de Civilizaciones, «no en el choque» de las mismas, es otra de las cuestiones que une a Pamuk y a Goytisolo, si bien este último prefiere hablar de «alianza de valores» porque hay «civilizaciones distintas que comparten valores como la democracia y el concepto de ciudadanía». «Hay dos países musulmanes en los que estos conceptos tienen validez: la desdichada Bosnia, a la que la Unión Europea y el mundo dejaron machacar hace unos años por el simple hecho de ser musulmana, y Turquía. La relación con estas naciones es esencial para la UE», subrayó Goytisolo, cuya defensa del mundo y la cultura árabes es de sobra conocida. Uno y otro reconocieron que la situación otomana «es compleja» y que su ingreso en la UE lo puede dificultar la existencia de grupos ultranacionalistas o el que, como dijo Pamuk, su país «no es una sociedad libre, no hay libertad de expresión», tal y como muchos turcos desearían que hubiera. sin excusas. Pero esa falta de libertad de expresión no afecta sólo a su país y «no se debe utilizar como excusa» para evitar su ingreso. El autor de El libro negro -novela que impresionó profundamente a Goytisolo-, Me llamo Rojo o Estambul, está convencido de que, cuando se superen estos problemas, Turquía «aportará mucho a la Unión Europea», y viceversa. Lamentablemente, «y a pesar del esfuerzo que realizan muchos compatriotas», esos inconvenientes «aún no se han superado» y, además, «la emoción y el entusiasmo que había hace cinco o seis años en Turquía» por incorporarse a la Unión Europea «se va apagando», y eso le entristece. Esta «situación actual negativa» es transitoria y Turquía camina hacia «otro nivel de convivencia y de relaciones», aseveró Pamuk, a quien su propia experiencia vital le ha servido para sacar una conclusión: «La cultura oriental y la occidental no son diferentes; es una misma cosa con diferentes caras». Como las preguntas de tipo político fueron incesantes durante el encuentro con la prensa, recordó que sus denuncias sobre lo que sucede en su país le han acarreado problemas con el Gobierno y algún que otro castigo. Además, le gustaría ser conocido «no como un escritor activista que opina sobre la política actual», sino como «una persona sentada ante su mesa de Estambul que intenta crear un universo de ficción».

La larga travesía por el desierto

http://www.elpais.com/
F. C. 20/01/2008
Turquía cumple todos los requisitos técnicos para entrar en la UE, pero no logra completar sus reformas

La visita del primer ministro turco Recep Tayyip Erdogan a España ha reactivado el debate sobre el ingreso del país euroasiático a la Unión Europea. El propio presidente del Gobierno, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, manifestaba abiertamente su apoyo a la adhesión turca, mientras que Erdogan aprovechaba la ocasión para recordar que Turquía cumple con todos los requisitos técnicos de la Comisión, razón suficiente para que la UE "explique de forma científica por qué no se les acepta dentro del club comunitario". Para el jefe del Ejecutivo turco, su país cumple los criterios de Maastricht, a diferencia de muchos actuales socios de la UE.
Un largo camino
La adhesión de Turquía a la Unión Europea ha estado marcada por un largo y tortuoso camino de más de 40 años y que comenzó formalmente en octubre de 2004. Unas negociaciones que casi siempre han estado condicionadas por la política, la religión y los derechos civiles, pero también por la economía. Precisamente, el argumento que Erdogan ha tomado como referencia para agilizar su ingreso. Los datos indican que Turquía ha crecido a tasas que duplican a la Unión Europea en el último lustro, realizando importantes esfuerzos para adaptar su economía a estándares comunitarios.
Después de solventar la severa crisis del sistema financiero de 2001, el país ha tenido un crecimiento sostenido que le ha permitido casi triplicar su PIB en seis años. Con una producción de 500.000 millones de dólares, el país se ha colocado en el puesto número 17 de las economías más grandes del mundo y en el sexto del continente, después de los Países Bajos. Durante esta década, la Administración turca también ha logrado controlar sus elevadas tasas de inflación, un mal que ha afectado históricamente a las finanzas turcas, con tasas que en el año 1997 rozaron el 100% de crecimiento anual. En 2001, este indicador llegaba al 68,5%, producto de la fuerte depreciación de la moneda local, la lira, reduciéndose hasta el 8,6% en 2007.
Esta evolución ha ido acompañada con el control de las cuentas públicas que, de momento, le permiten cumplir con los criterios de austeridad presupuestaria establecidos en Maastricht. Después de una serie de acuerdos con el FMI, Turquía ha pasado de tener un déficit fiscal del 12,9% del PIB en 2002 hasta bajar del 3% exigido por Europa a partir del año 2005. En cuanto a la deuda pública, ésta se ha reducido hasta el 64% en 2006, desde el 104% de 2001. Datos que, según Turquía, le hacen cumplir adecuadamente los estándares europeos. No obstante, para el club comunitario hay una serie de reformas que aún están pendientes.
Descontando las disputas con Chipre, el problema kurdo, los escasos avances en materia de derechos civiles y mejoras del sistema judicial, hay trabas económicas que siguen siendo un problema. En sus sucesivos informes sobre la adhesión, la Comisión ha advertido que la autoridad monetaria no es lo suficientemente independiente del poder político y que las autoridades públicas no terminan de desligarse del sistema financiero. En al ámbito del empleo, la UE ha detectado incumplimientos relativamente importantes en lo que se refiere al respeto de los derechos sindicales, a la lucha contra el empleo no declarado y a las capacidades administrativas.
Temas pendientes
Otro de los temas aún pendientes para la UE es la fiscalidad y su escasa adaptación al acervo comunitario en temas como el IVA y los tipos aplicados, la estructura y los tipos de los impuestos especiales y la fiscalidad directa. No obstante, la Comisión reconoce que, en cuanto a la competencia, la armonización con el acervo en el ámbito de los acuerdos entre empresas está ya muy avanzada y que la adaptación legislativa en este ámbito continúa progresando. También destaca la consolidación de la intermediación financiera, aunque aún se detectan problemas en el avance de sectores clave como la energía y los transportes.
Por su parte, la OCDE agrega que se debe hacer más esfuerzos para atraer al inversor extranjero, además de trabajar para reducir los elevados tipos de interés y mejorar la flexibilidad de los mercados laborales, lo que debería ayudar a la economía a mejorar su competitividad. En su último informe de 2007, la Comisión advierte un panorama positivo para la constitución de empresas.
Esto ha permitido que la inversión extranjera directa (IED) haya tocado niveles récord durante 2007. Los últimos datos del Gobierno turco indican que este indicador pasó de los 1.700 millones de euros de 2003 a los 16.000 millones de euros hasta octubre de 2007. Un dato que en su mayoría se debe al proceso privatizador que se está emprendiendo y que podría disparar hasta los 30.000 millones de dólares la IED.
Precisamente la inversión es uno de los puntos clave para las empresas europeas y españolas. Durante 2006, más del 70% de las inversiones llegadas al país llegaron desde los países europeos, superando los 10.500 millones de euros durante 2006 y los 2.700 millones hasta abril de 2007. Los sectores más apetecidos son la construcción, el turismo y las infraestructuras. Pero no sólo eso. Con más de 80 millones de habitantes, los intercambios comerciales de Turquía con Europa van en alza. En 2005 se dirigieron a la Unión Europea el 52,3% de las exportaciones turcas. En importaciones turcas, en 2005, el 42,1% de las mismas procedían de la UE. El saldo comercial es tradicionalmente favorable a la UE.
La conexión española
La apuesta de Zapatero por Turquía, manifestada esta semana, no es una casualidad. En los últimos años, las cifras de intercambios comerciales entre ambos países marcan sucesivos récords. En 2007 se alcanzaron los 7.000 millones de euros, frente a los 6.000 millones del ejercicio anterior. El propio Erdogan ha señalado que su deseo es que esta cifra se eleve a los 10.000 millones cuanto antes. De esta manera, las exportaciones de la economía española hacia Turquía alcanzaron en 2006 un 2,8% de la cuota de mercado. De acuerdo con los datos de la Oficina Económica y Comercial de España en Ankara, España fue el sexto país receptor de exportaciones turcas en 2006 con un 4,3%.
Según el Instituto de Comercio Exterior (Icex), el punto débil en las relaciones económicas y comerciales entre España y Turquía es la inversión. La concentración de las inversiones españolas en países de Latinoamérica y la UE hace que Turquía no sea un objetivo prioritario. Con todo, los datos oficiales del país euroasiático indican que Turquía es el undécimo receptor de la inversión española al extranjero, con 333 millones de euros acumulados hasta marzo de 2007. Las posibilidades españolas están centradas en sectores como las infraestructuras, el turismo y la energía.

Turkey economy slowed sharply in '07-

Reuters
Tuesday January 15 2008
(Adds comments from interview with minister)
By Daliah Merzaban
DUBAI, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Turkish economic growth last year slowed significantly because of a doubling in energy prices and a drought, but growth of 4 to 4.5 percent would still be a good performance, Economy Minister Mehmet Simsek said on Tuesday.
"Growth has slowed down significantly in 2007. It is simply a number of supply side shocks; energy prices doubling and a drought," Simsek told an investors' conference in Dubai.
Economic growth of between 4 percent and 4.5 percent would be "quite a strong performance", he added.
Simsek told Reuters in an interview after the conference the government would speed up its privatisation programme and would decide by March how to sell its 75 percent stake in Halkbank.
Agricultural output in the first three quarters of 2007 shrank nearly 6 percent, he said at the conference organised by EFG Istanbul Securities.
Turkey had a 5 percent growth target for 2007, but third-quarter data showed gross national product growing at only 2 percent. The growth target for 2008 is 5.5 percent, and actual growth in 2006 was 6.0 percent.
Simsek said reducing inflation was critical to achieving the government's economic growth targets.
"Inflation is likely to trend downward ... If we continue to privatise, promote competition, attract foreign direct investment and make the labour market more flexible, I think that will help reduce inflation," he said.
Simsek said he was optimistic that inflation in the medium term would be in the low single digits.
Turkey's consumer price inflation in 2007 came in at 8.39 percent, twice the government's 4 percent target.
PRICE STABILITY
"Price stability is absolutely critical because without that it would be difficult to sustain these growth rates," Simsek said, referring to a medium-term 7 percent potential target rate for Turkey.
Simsek said he expected tourism revenues at $18-$20 billion in 2007 and this should rise to $30 billion in the next few years as foreign tourist numbers rise to 30 million from 22 million at present.
Simsek said the government would speed up its privatisation drive in 2008, when Ankara hopes to sell off tobacco firm Tekel, a 75 percent stake in Halkbank , electricity distributions grids and sugar factories.
The government would decide by March whether to sell its Halkbank stake to a strategic investor or via a secondary public offering, with a sale concluded by the end of the year, he said.
Turkey attracted $19 billion in foreign direct investment in 2007 including revenues from privatisation, and would at least match this figure this year, the minister said.
The Halkbank sale alone would generate $9 billion in revenues, according to EFG Istanbul estimates.
"Privatisation is gaining momentum," Simsek said. "While the global backdrop has somewhat weakened, Turkey plans to accelerate the privatisation programme."
Privatisation of the country's electricity production assets would be completed in 2011 or 2012, rather than an initial 2010 goal, he said.
Simsek said the government aimed to have a business-friendly new constitution in the second half of 2008.
"In the second half of 2008, we will have a brand new constitution that will be business-friendly and involve more individual freedoms," he said.
Simsek's ruling centre-right AK Party is drawing up a new draft constitution for Turkey, a European Union candidate country, to replace the current document, which dates back to a period of military rule in the early 1980s.
Turkey is also on target to pass a social security reform law through parliament by the end of the month, he said. (Editing by Selcuk Gokoluk and Stephen Nisbet)

Turkey and tolerance Deviating from the path

Jan 10th 2008 ISTANBULFrom The Economist print edition
A cross-dresser's troubles with a resurgent Islam

FOR more than 30 years a cross-dresser with a razor-sharp wit and a merciless tongue has won the affection of millions of Turks. And his success on television has been vaunted as evidence of the tolerance of Turkey's unique mix of Islam and secularism.
But for the past year Huysuz Virjin (the Petulant Virgin) has been replaced by his less exotic self, Seyfi Dursunoglu, in a show aired on a private television channel. The 76-year-old entertainer claims to have been forced to trade in his trademark blonde wig, silk stockings and sexy gowns for more conventional male garb after Turkey's broadcasting watchdog, the RTUK, put pressure on television stations to ban cross-dressing.
RTUK denies such censorship. But Mr Dursunoglu insists that he is the victim of a creeping conservatism that he believes has infected the country ever since the mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party came to power five years ago. Although he was allowed to appear in drag for a special new-year programme, he says that “as a performer, I am no longer as free”. Similar concerns about artistic freedom and secularism were aired last month by Fazil Say, a Turkish pianist, who accused the AK party of being unfriendly.
Debate over whether Turkey is veering off the determinedly secular course laid down by Ataturk has intensified ever since AK was returned to power for a second five-year term in last July's parliamentary election, when it took 47% of the vote. Most Turks are plainly unfazed by such fears. Recent opinion polls suggest that support for AK has risen to a record 52%. “There is no evidence of a systematic plan by the government to make Turkey more Islamic,” concedes Nilufer Narli, an Istanbul-based sociologist. Yet she adds that “expressions of Islamic piety are becoming increasingly overt, indeed a vehicle for networking and social mobility.”
Awkwardly for AK, an openly gay fashion designer has emerged as its most passionate defender. Cemil Ipekci has declared that AK is the best government to have ruled the country in the history of the republic and that, had he been born a woman, “I would have covered my head [ie, Islamic-style].” Pressed to explain, a demure Mr Ipekci says “I am a conservative homosexual.”

Turkey must move fast to avoid EU setbacks

By Paul Taylor Reuters
Published: January 4, 2008
BRUSSELS: Turkey faces a potential "triple whammy" of blows to its European Union membership bid later this year unless re-elected Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan moves quickly to enact human rights reforms, EU diplomats say.
Ankara's accession talks, launched in October 2005, have already been slowed to a trickle by the suspension of part of the negotiations over its refusal to open its ports and airports to traffic from EU member Cyprus.
Now the Turks face a negative European Commission progress report, renewed pressure from Cyprus, and French demands for the EU to discuss setting final borders, with Turkey on the outside.
"Erdogan needs to push laws through the new parliament on freedom of expression, the rights of religious minorities and other fundamental freedoms quickly to give the Commission something positive to report," a senior EU official said.
Without that, the annual progress report due on Nov. 7 is bound to conclude that reforms have virtually ceased over the last year, he said.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn made the point forcefully in congratulating Erdogan on Sunday's landslide general election victory for his Islamist-rooted AK party.
"We need in particular to see concrete results in areas of fundamental freedoms such as freedom of expression and religious freedom," he told a news conference on Monday.
"I trust that the new government in Turkey will immediately relaunch the reform process so we can produce results (before) our next progress report in early November."
Joost Lagendijk, co-chairman of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Assembly, said the top priority was to amend or abolish article 301 of the Penal Code, used repeatedly to prosecute writers and journalists for "insulting Turkishness".
That law was used to prosecute Nobel prize winning author Orhan Pamuk and to convict Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink, later murdered, for expressing peaceful views on the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.
A long-stalled law on religious foundations giving more rights to Christian and other minorities and better treatment to the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul is another priority, Lagendijk said.
Turkish political commentators say Erdogan will face resistance from a nationalist opposition, whose acquiescence he needs to get his candidate for president chosen by parliament. The presidency, though armed with few executive powers, is a potent symbol of secularism for a conservative establishment that suspects Erdogan of harbouring a secret Islamist agenda.
The prime minister must also tread carefully with a military suspicious of his Islamist past and nervous about some EU-driven reforms. The AK party has cut back the generals' formal state powers under these reforms, but they remain a force on the political stage.
Erdogan could win more European goodwill by withdrawing some troops from northern Cyprus, making a concession on trade with Cyprus or opening Turkey's border with Armenia, but such moves seem unlikely as they would inflame nationalist sentiment.
Diplomats said Cyprus and France would likely jump on a critical European Commission report to demand further sanctions against Turkey or a rethink of its candidacy.
That too could provoke a nationalist backlash among Turks.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly said Turkey is in Asia Minor, not Europe, and has no place in the EU.
His foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said on Monday that Paris had a problem with five of the 35 "chapters" or policy areas into which the accession talks are divided, because in French eyes they assumed the outcome of full membership. But it was willing to allow the rest of the negotiations to proceed.
Another senior French official, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, has suggested Sarkozy could be satisfied in December with a summit agreement to appoint a committee to study the future of enlargement and the capacity to absorb new members.
That might kick the problem into touch for a year, but the panel would report back under France's presidency of the EU in the second half of 2008, possibly fuelling Sarkozy's drive to move the goalposts on Turkey's talks.

After 'wasted year,' Turkey turns attention back to economic reform

By Selcuk Gokoluk Reuters Published: January 3, 2008

ANKARA: Turkey hopes to increase its growth rate while reining in inflation in 2008, but economists say that the government's plans are insufficient during a time of tighter credit in global markets.
As part of its plan, the government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to raise the retirement age, shake up the labor market and increase aid for research and development. But such changes will have a positive fiscal effect on a slowing economy only in the long term, according to some analysts.
Drought, high energy prices and political wrangling prior to parliamentary elections in July - won again by Erdogan's pro-business AK Party - trimmed the growth rate for Turkey's gross national product to just 2 percent in the third quarter. Economic growth averaged a gung-ho 7.4 percent in the years 2002 to 2006, but was expected to come in well below that for 2007.
"Growth will be the most important economic indicator in the next five years instead of public finances," said Pelin Yenigun Dilek, chief economist at Garanti Bank, a midsize Turkish bank. "Growth of 4 percent will worsen unemployment and stoke social and even ethnic tensions."
Turkey needs to keep creating jobs for a fast-growing, young population. Its big cities are also surrounded by large shanty towns occupied by rural migrants, often from the impoverished, mainly Kurdish southeast.
Faruk Celik, the labor and social security minister, recently called 2007 a "wasted year" because of political opposition that stalled much of the government's agenda in Parliament.
At the same time, inflation for the year came in at 8.39 percent - double the target set by the central bank, which cut rates four times since September to try to head off a slowdown amid global economic turbulence.
The government is expecting a 5 percent growth rate for GNP for 2007 and has set a 5.5 percent target for GNP growth in 2008, and is counting on pushing through its legislative agenda to underpin that target.
The draft bills are still in Parliament and subject to change, but they currently call for gradually raising the country's retirement age to 68. Now there is no standard age, but it can be as low as 40.
The government proposals include a program of general health care for all citizens to help head off protests. It also plans to cut social security contributions paid by employers as a way to encourage hiring.
The economy minister, Mehmet Simsek, also is planning to accelerate the pace of privatizations during 2008 and 2009, aiming to sell enterprises like Halkbank, the cigarette company Tekel, and energy production and distribution companies as well as highways and bridges.
Business groups and economists are not entirely convinced about the efficacy of long-term, gradual transitions.
"This is a 15-year plan and it will not have a serious positive impact in the short term," said Gulay Elif Girgin, an economist at Oyak Investment, a unit of Oyak Bank. "General health insurance will create an extra burden on the budget in the coming three to five years."
Business groups also fret that the deterioration in economic indicators might worsen as global liquidity becomes more scarce.
"Improvements in inflation, the budget deficit, the current account deficit and debt dynamics have stopped," Erdal Karamercan, a member of the leading Turkish business forum TUSIAD, said last month. "The improvements have gone into reverse in some areas."
Turkey could have difficulty financing its growth because of scarce liquidity in international markets, he said.
A government official said there were no plans yet to revise the economic targets, because the final data on the last quarter of 2007 could still change the overall picture.
"There was uncertainty and worries due to elections but now these have disappeared and the economy has started to recover," the official said on the customary condition of anonymity. "Our growth targets are certainly within reach."
Economists agree that more privatizations in 2008 could help. Turkey was aiming to attract $25 billion in foreign direct investment in 2007, but likely missed that target.
"Even if prices are not as high as in past privatizations, there will be interest," Girgin said. "There is serious money in the Middle East and Turkey is one of the markets" Arab investors like.